Sify Infinit Spaces Limited, which has 200 operational megawatt capacity across seven different locations, including in Lucknow, will raise `3,700 crore through a public offer. Nearly `2,500 crore of the proceeds will be invested into business, enabling it to set up 300 MW capacity. Sify Infinit CEO Sharad Agarwal tells Sanal Sudevan that the company has 15% market share and wants to maintain it as the demand for data centres increases in the country. Excerpts:
How have you divided your data centres focus?
Our focus is three different segments: Large campuses catering to hyperscalers, AI cloud companies where demand is somewhere around 100 MW; enterprise-graded data centres where the need will be maximum capability of 50 MW; and Edge centres, which are smaller and up to 10 MW data centres. Over the time, we are planning to be present in every state with Edge data centres.
What is your strategy to grow in South India and when we can we expect operation of Visakhapatnam facility?
We have intention to do more cities in South India and our growth strategy aligns with Edge data centre growth plan… There are multiple factors about actual inauguration of Vizag such as laying of cable landing system and actual onboarding the customers, among others. We are actively scouting for customers in Vizag and seek to be operational within next one or two years.
How the proceeds will be used collected through IPO?
Out of the `3700 crore IPO, `2,500 crore will be invested into business, which is enough for us to set up another 300 MW of data centre capability in India.
What is the status of your listing process?
We are done with the investor roadshows. The final valuation and book-building discussions are underway.
Why is India drawing attractions of data centre ecosystem?
There are several factors due to which data centres has drawn attention of international players: First, India has population of 1.4 billion and it needs a lot of data centres to store its data. The Union government is pushing for data sovereignty, and this can happen only if India has enough data centres. Second, there is no energy constraint as India’s infrastructure is ready for data centres. The power reliability at 220 kV and 400 kV, which are extra high voltage level, is very good. Third, there is huge support from the Centre and state government. A few state governments have come up with state-specific data centre policies. Energy infrastructure and quantity are there in India compared with other geographies where data centres are installing behind the metre gas-fired
power plants for the faster-time-to-the-market, which is 150-200% times expensive than the grid tariff.
What policy change you would want government focus on?
The government should continue to focus on giving single-window clearance for data centres to set up in India.
What is your strategy against the hyperscalers setting up in India?
Most of the hyperscalers coming to India are US-based companies. In spite of these hyperscalers building for themselves, there is a huge co-location data centre industry in the US… If the hyperscalers are not able to build for themselves in the US, then it is unlikely that they would be able to build for India needs, and the country would need co-location players like us.
How are you managing your supply chain system and acquiring of necessary equipment?
Around 90% of suppliers are local. Our suppliers are engineering, electrical, mechanical, structural equipment. These companies provide us diesel generator, transformer, electrical busway system, chiller, and electrical panel, among others. We don’t make investments in GPU, semiconductors and CPUs as well as storage. These are done by our customers. Laying of optic fibre cable and setting up the cable landing station are looked into by our parent company Sify Technologies Ltd.
Can you give mix of your customers in Chennai data centres?
Nearly 70% of customers are hyperscalers, 20% are BFSI segment and remaining are other smaller players. We also have neocloud companies as our customer in Chennai. Across India, at least nine hyperscalers and neocloud companies will make up our 80-90% of our business.
Can you address concern around water and power usage by the data centres?
In India, water usage is very limited in data centres. Water is a concern if you are using evaporative cooling, whereas in the country, we have closed loop water system. Water is pumped in once, it keeps circulating. Water is replenished if there is any leakage in the loop system, which happens to be only a few gallons.
From Sify Infiniti point of view, we are using nearly 58% of our energy consumption is from renewable energy. Industry is urging the government to form a policy which promotes 100% usage of renewable energy for data centres. Right now, open access policy (Green Energy Open Access) Rules, 2022, is designed such a way that we are not able to use renewable power sources not more than 60%.